Toshiba THNSNF 512GB SSD review: with proprietary controller

Can Toshiba's own controller compete with the best?

By Koen CrijnsThursday 17 January 2013 05:58

Introduction

Toshiba has been an important player in the SSD market for a long time, but you don't see their products on store shelves very often. That's because Toshiba SSDs typically aren't sold separately, but are used by manufacturers of laptops, PCs and even servers. Recently Toshiba launched a new series of SSDs, with a name that just rolls off your tongue: "THNSNF". These are supposed to be sold separately, but we have yet to see them offered by any retailers. Toshiba sent us the 512GB model, which we put through our standard testing procedure to find out what it has in store.

The THNSNF uses a controller developed by Toshiba with product number TC58NC5HA9GST. Not a lot is known about this chip, except that it has a Serial ATA 600 interface and supports TRIM. Toshiba prides itself on its so-called "Quadruple Swing-By Code" technology, that applies error correction codes (ECC) on read tasks, which are supposed to prevent errors.

Toshiba is one of the few companies that also manufactures its own flash memory. The Toshiba ToggleFlash chips have been used in the Plextor M5 Pro, Corsair Neutron GTX and other high-end SSDs. The controller in the THNSNF is also combined with 19nm MLC flash memory from its own factory, the same chips used in the Plextor M5 Pro. The SSD does not have any buffer memory, even though the PCB does have room for it.

For the 512 GB SSD that we tested, Toshiba claims read speeds of up to 524 MB/s and write speeds of up to 461 MB/s, fairly typical numbers. The SSD is 7mm high, which means it will fit in thinner laptops.

A price was not yet known at the time of writing, so let's move on to the benchmarks.